Supply Chain Planning

Complexity and uncertainty under control: Simulation-based planning of the supply chain

During the course of globalization, not only have interesting new target markets been developed, but also a virtualization of industrial production and trade has taken place. Collaboration over the complete value-added chain has become the key to success in many lines of business. As a result, globally distributed supply chains now form the central nerve of the world economy. Enterprises that plan their supply chains in an intelligent manner, taking economic and technical aspects as well as risks into account, are successful in competition. But how can one get a grip on the resulting complexity and uncertainty during planning? Horus offers an interesting solution in this regard, connecting the advantages of graphical modeling with elaborate analysis and simulation proceedings:

Strategic Planning

The strategic planning of supply chains is not an isolated process, especially in highly virtualized enterprises. The synergetic cooperation of all participating business partners and the simultaneous planning of products, production methods and marketing strategies is now required. The Horus Method allows the depiction of this simultaneous planning through the use of performance, goal and key indicator models, linking these together with goal and strategy models. The collaboration of business partners is carried out via Social BPM methods.

Tactical Planning

In practice it turns out that the highest complexity lies within tactical Supply Chain planning. Precisely this mid-term planning suffers from the growing uncertainty of business management forecasts and the rapidly changing social environment. And while the operational supply chain planning is supported by standard ERP systems quite well, this support is almost completely missing in the tactical area. An ideal field of application for Horus: Models form an ideal basis for the planning of these complex supply chains. In addition, the intensive use of scenarios and process simulation provides solid statements about planning alternatives with a sustainable reduction in planning risks.

Operative Planning

Although operative Supply Chain planning is the domain of common ERP systems, interesting application possibilities for Horus can also be found in this environment. This is primarily the case when conventional optimization algorithms and heuristics reach their limits because a complex planning context must be considered, for example, which can be adequately represented only by simulation. Or it involves application fields in which suitable scheduling systems are not available.